Secrets
by The Mighty Duck
Summary: Things can be kept from more than one person. A Brave Kid challenge fan fic! Also, slightly A/U.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**

This short story idea is credited to Brave Kid :). Thanks for the challenge and for me, this has been such a challenge because the couple in this fic, I have never pictured as a couple.

Also, for the purpose of the story, I have made Nosedive nineteen years old and this is way it is slightly A/U. I have never seen Nosedive as nineteen but for me, he had to be nineteen for the story to work.

Okay, the author's note is over and now, on with the story! Hope you all enjoy :).

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**The Morning Before Lucretia Decoy Arrives ...**

Tanya blinked in surprise at the shots being fired in the shooting range. It wasn't like shots being fired in a shooting range was anything out of the ordinary. It was the packet of insults that went along with every loud bang that could be heard outside the door of the gallery.

'Son of a Saurian!'

BANG!

'Inconsiderate, little twerp!'

BANG!

'Horrible … horrible … duck!' The last word was spat like it was the worst insult a person could ever think of.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Already recognizing the voice, Tanya decided to have a word with the duck despite her better judgement. There would be plenty of time for Electric Land later. In the meantime, if this duck wasn't calmed somewhat, Tanya wouldn't put it past the person to go after whoever it was that had caused the duck such a bad mood.

Easing the door open and cringing slightly at the ear-splitting shots that accompanied the equally as ear-splitting screams, Tanya just managed to speak rather than run in the other direction.

'U-uh, h-hi, Mallory,' she stuttered, trying to smile but all that came was a timid gaze.

Red hair dishevelled, brushing down into her eyes, Mallory's stance stiffened more though Tanya didn't think it possible. However, the shorter duck relaxed when she glanced over to see the scientist in the doorway. Tanya could see her visibly breath a sigh of relief.

'Oh,' she said nonchalantly. 'Hi, Tanya.'

Without another word, she cocked her gun and fired again.

Eyes naturally drawn to where the pucks were being launched, Tanya blinked, doing a double-take.

Nope. She'd seen right the first time.

There, taped right in the middle of the target becoming the new bull's eye, was a picture of Nosedive. Or, more correctly, _used to be _a picture of Nosedive. All that was left was a strip of his hair which made Tanya recognize who the photo was of. No one else had hair like that boy.

'Umm …' Tanya glanced back at the red-head, who was now reloading her puck launcher. 'Nosedive prank you again?'

At the mention of his name, Mallory's brown eyes became viciously hard. 'Get out!'

Unlike most people, Tanya was never one who had to be told twice. She turned and fled, slamming the door shut behind her. She kept running all the way to the elevator, unknowing she was about to meet with an old enemy that would endanger their whole operation.

Mallory's shoulders slumped as soon as Tanya left. She felt weak, so weak. Her body was so toned, able to take the most brutal of workouts. Too bad her heart wasn't as fit.

She suddenly found herself on her knees. 'I wish that was all he'd done to me,' she whispered.

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**The Night Lucretia Decoy is defeated …**

Mallory glanced at her watch and internally growled. Tonight was _not_ a good night to be late. Two minutes was left until eight o'clock though so there was still time. Slim but still.

She went to tap her fingers impatiently on the candle-lit table but thought better of it. She hated it when other people did it so she didn't want to become the same annoyance. But, her fingers had to do something.

Snatching up her glass, she occupied herself in making sure her hair was smoothed back to perfection. What the hell? Why was she preening herself? What if he caught her doing that? Oh, hell no!

She slammed down the cup harder than she intended, succeeding in making the ice-cold water splash all over her mini-red dress. This time, she growled vocally.

'I should have known tonight would be like this,' she spat.

'Need a napkin?'

She jumped at the unexpected voice and just managed to stem a gasp. However, the gasp happened but this time, it was from delighted shock rather than a fright.

Standing before her, in a midnight black suit, complete with a soft maroon tie and white shirt underneath the jacket hanging loose, was Nosedive. His usually rowdy hair was captured in a ponytail, even his two bangs, which made his large eyes appear even larger again. The only thing that was missing was his trademark cocky grin. Instead, it was replaced with an apologetic smile which Mallory couldn't question the genuineness of.

'I … I can't believe you wore the suit I bought you,' she said softly, beak slightly open as her eyes trailed him up and down, still unable to believe what she was seeing.

His smile grew slightly sadder. 'Kinda figured it was the least I could do after … well … you know.'

At the mention of the subject, she sat up straight and rearranged her features, ignoring the napkin he'd been offering her, instead, grabbing her own. She concentrated in wiping down her attire, doing her best to avoid eye contact with him in case his expression made her regret her iciness.

She heard him sigh then the chair scrape back as he sat down.

'Should've seen that one coming, huh?' There was humour there but she could tell by the lacklustre in his tone, how much he regretted his actions.

'Guess you should have,' she muttered.

As her eyes darted everywhere but him, she spotted the menu. A smug grin contorted onto her beak as she remembered her previous plan.

With one last swipe of her dress, she pushed it towards him. 'Oh, by the way, I'm ordering menu item number 3.'

His eyebrows rose slightly as he snatched up the menu. Scanning it within seconds, Mallory watched in shock as Nosedive's eyes brightened with amusement and a burst of good-natured laughter erupted from him.

'Oh, I should've seen that one coming too,' he chuckled, smiling at her. 'The most expensive item on the menu!' He winked at her. 'Nice one. And you reckon I'm the prank master.'

She looked away in attempt to hide the smile that spontaneously responded to his wink but it was too late. He'd seen it.

'Ah, so you don't _completely _hate me.' The eighteen-year-old leaned back in his chair, crossing his right ankle over his left knee, raising his water to his beak, eyes cheekily looking over the rim at her.

She mock glared at him. 'Don't be so sure.'

His eyebrows rose again and she could tell he was slightly perturbed at her retort. 'I could say some stuff in my defence but I'll think I'll save that for another night.'

'Good call.' She gave a satisfied nod, suddenly wanting to change the subject after his last sentence. When Nosedive wasn't joking, she knew he had good points that he was passionate about making but right now, she didn't want to hear them. Tonight, she just wanted to be spoilt, content to think that Nosedive had done all the wrong by flirting with Lucretia, and enjoy the eye candy of her long-time boyfriend in a suit. Besides, she had a suspicion on what his defence was and she didn't even _want _to go there.

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Hope you all like it. Sorry _Stranger _has been greatly neglected of late but I just haven't had the inspiration for it. Hopefully, this will be quicker. There will be a large gap in between the posting of this chapter and the next chapter because I am going on holidays for three weeks! See you all when I get back :D.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey everyone! Sorry this update has taken sooooooooooooooooooo long but it has been absolutely full on for me with holidays, submissions to magazines and scholarships and Christmas! Yaaaay, Christmas! Please, some authors post up some Christmas-themed Mighty Ducks fiction! I would love to read it! Who knows? If I have the time, I might just post one up myself :).

A big shout out to Brave Kid whose B-day it is today :). Happy Birthday, Brave Kid, and hope you had a great day :). Small present for you.

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'Uh, hi, Thrash.' Mallory barely held back her distaste for the human. He always had this gravelly tone in his voice like he hadn't cleared his throat since he was three, seemed to think that Batman was a real entity who would swoop down on him if someone spoke bad of the black-and-grey miscrient in his shop and insisted on substituting her name for some stupid, youthful colloquialism. However, he knew how to keep a secret, along with Mookie and the comic book shop provided a great secret meeting place for her and Nosedive.

'Dive's in the back, Mallory.' Mookie thumbed behind her back at the door which led to the room in the back.

The military duck gave the pink-haired girl a grateful smile. Despite thinking that she would dislike the human like she did her partner, Mookie had proven to have a good, though wacky sense of humour, but most of all, addressed her by her name.

Making her way around the counter, a path she had grown very familiar with, Mallory edged her way through the door, shutting it behind her as quickly as she could.

'Took you long enough. And I thought I was the unpunctual one.'

Taking a quick scan around the room, she saw Nosedive leaning back in a rocking chair. Booted foot propped on a small card table in the room and open Spiderman comic on his lap, Nosedive was right at home and casual as ever as he grinned up at his girlfriend. The position couldn't help but remind her of when she first met Nosedive all of …

'_Two years ago,' Mallory answered with a respectful nod to Principal Maverick. 'I started to join my father on these visits two years ago.'_

'_I see,' Principal Maverick smiled, exposing his crooked teeth, only just overshadowed by the way he shifted his scrawny body continually in his seat. It was hard to see how he could have come to be the principal of one of Puckworld's most massive schools, Cravington High. The sentence, 'Behave, otherwise, I'll send you to the principal's office,' would be used as a joke rather than a threat._

_Withholding a sigh, Mallory went back to her lunch tray. Why did she agree to do this visiting school trip to encourage youths to follow careers and place ideas of going to university? Oh, yes, that's right, her father guilt tripped her into it._

'_Do me a favour, Mallory,' General Harold McMallard muttered in her ear hole, rousing her out of her inner grumbles. 'Don't ever date a boy like that.'_

_Immediately, Mallory followed her father's line of sight to spot a youth laughing at a table with two drakes who were much older than him. He looked to be only about fourteen but judging by the way he conducted himself, he was far too confident to be so young. He was getting louder by the second, animatedly telling a story, laughing before even getting to the punch line. One of the drakes he was talking to, a tall handsome white duck, was trying to hide a smile while the other, a tanned man, was rolling his eyes, trying to look annoyed but just coming off amused._

'_No respect,' Harold clicked his tongue beside her. 'A child that age should be seen, not heard. At least not _that _loud anyway.'_

_Mallory screwed up her beak in disgust as the youth took a large mouthful of rice and continued talking. 'Couldn't agree with you more.' She glanced sideways at her father with a smile. 'Don't worry, you'll never catch me dead dating a boy like that.' She raised an eyebrow. 'I thought you would think I had better standards than that.'_

_Harold just cast her a warning glance before striking up a conversation with the nervously twitching principal. Stars, was everyone sure he just wasn't having a fit?_

_Mallory tried to go back to her food but found her eyes kept trailing back to the youth for some strange reason. Each time she tried to concentrate on capturing some peas in her fork, the blonde boy would suddenly be there in her vision, telling some other sort of story. She soon found she could hear what he said and before she knew it, was listening along to his stories._

'_I'm telling you, with all the evidence, Drake DuCaine is real,' he was saying. Mallory started to notice that when he was talking about something strongly, his big brown eyes glittered with passion and/or cheekiness._

_The white drake tried to reason the folly of the younger's statement but the teenager pushed on._

'_I am telling you, Wing! With what I learned in history class today, the dude was totally real.'_

_Mallory also noticed that when he smiled, it had this sort of lopsided swagger to it. It was kind of cute … errggh, wrong word, absolutely disgusting!_

'_You actually took notice enough that you realized you were in history class?' the tanned duck taunted, leaning his elbows on the table in a superior gesture._

_His answer was a face full of mashed potatoes, expertly cannoned off the youth's spoon._

'_Food fight!'_

_The words echoed through the cafeteria, creating a mass reaction._

'_Stars!' Mallory screeched, as tomato sauce poured down her hair while her father jumped to his feet with an indignant gasp as broccoli landed perfectly on his general's hat._

'_Bullseye!' someone yelled._

'_Students! Behave yourselves, we have guests!' Principal Maverick tried to shout but it more sounded like a scared squeak._

'_Alright, that's it!' Mallory snarled as potato salad slapped her on the side of her face._

_Grabbing her plate, she leaped into the foray of arms, legs and food. With one mighty heave, the food went splattering all over six students._

'_Way to go!'_

_Eyes angry slits, Mallory spun around to come face to face with the blonde teenager._

_He grinned, despite her obvious annoyance, and held out his hand, like he was making her acquaintance in a park rather than a cafeteria full of food-encrusted students and flying food debris. 'Name's Nosedive. I so have to be on your team! Where did you learn to food fight like that?'_

'_You!' Mallory screamed in his face. 'You started all this mess!'_

_His grin widened, not at all perturbed by her accusation. Instead, he actually looked … looked proud! 'Yep! The one and only Nosedive Flashblade starts an epic food fight at Cravington High. Sounds like a good header for a newspaper doesn't it?' Taking no notice of Mallory's dropped beak and angry, incredulous eyes, he struck a pose, standing like a superhero on top of a mountain, amongst bits of food flicking into his face and hair. 'Do you think I should do this pose for the front cover?' He threw back his head and laughed as his whole stance dropped into a typical teenager slouch. 'Nah, just kiddin'. What's your name?'_

_She was angry. No, actually, she was way beyond that. She was rabid. How dare he be so flippant about being such a rebellious, disrespectful brat? But most of all, what annoyed her above everything else, was when he struck the pose, she had actually found herself staring at his obviously muscular arms and handsome, smiling face._

'_Get the hell away from me!' she snapped, shoving him in the chest, succeeding in making him stumble._

_She almost choked in annoyance as he once again, didn't get annoyed but only shrugged._

'_That's cool,' he said while for some reason, his hand reached behind and to the table behind him. 'That's usually the reaction I get from girls I talk to.'_

_And her beak was hanging open again. Stars, didn't this kid know what 'Get the hell away from me' meant?_

_Suddenly, his beautiful, brown eyes took on a mischievous gleam while his beak tweaked upwards at the corner. 'Oh, well, you know what they say. If you can't beat them, feed them.'_

'_Oh, Stars, you must be the _most—_'_

_Mallory's retort was cut off by the pile of mashed potatoes that Nosedive rammed into her face._

'Earth to Mallory.' Nosedive's laughing face was suddenly right in front of her and he bent low so he was directly at her level. 'Have my amazing looks left you speechless—'

He was cut off as Mallory threw her arms around his neck and kissed him so hard, her beak hurt.

One of the things she loved about Nosedive was when she did something erratic, he never acted shocked. Like now, he simply wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her back, sighing in pleasure as they continued. She couldn't help but grin in the kiss at this. It was like he was sitting back after an awesome meal, giving a satisfied sigh. It was so Nosedive to react to her like he did to food.

After awhile, Mallory slowly eased back and rested her head on his slim but muscular shoulder.

'Well, I … um … hmm …' Nosedive mumbled along.

Mallory giggled, practically able to feel the hotness in his cheeks. 'Who's speechless now?'

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The third chapter is going to take me awhile to get up but in the meantime, Merry Christmas to all! Oh, and before I forget, could everybody sign this petition _wwwDOTchangeDOTorg/petitions/walt-disney-home-entertainment-release-the-disney-afternoon-era-shows-on-dvd?share_id=hjeRRVVvnY&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition _ to get The Mighty Ducks (and a heap of other cartoons that were on the Disney Afternoon Block) released onto DVD. If they get enough signatures, it just might happen! Now, that would be a nice Christmas present :).

Everyone, have a very safe and Merry Christmas.


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